2007-05-20 - 5:44 p.m.

On Friday night I found myself at a ginormous graduation party for all 12 million people who just graduated from Cal Arts. Every year for graduation, they throw this huge party that overtakes the school�s campus. We got there around 11 p.m., already a little drunk, and climbed a giant woodsy hillside in the dark, making our way toward the music and the rabblerousing. There is nothing quite like hoards of wasted art school students. They�re very different from hoards of wasted law school students. Law students are much dirtier dancers.

So, why were we there? Erik�s coworker�s husband is a Cal Artster. I love this particular coworker. As for Cal Arts, it confused me. The bathroom walls were covered with such broad statements as �Fuck Authority!� and �You are ignorance.� I�m pretty sure Cal Arts is the school Claire�s art school is modeled after (in Six Feet Under). I get the impression the students are actually discouraged from concerning themselves with achieving commercial success. Erik�s coworker�s husband is majoring in �conceptual art.� This means he does not actually *make* anything. As far as I can discern, he *thinks* about making things. I will say this: I have to respect these people who borrow $60k to earn a graduate degree in thinking about making things. Such an undertaking requires more faith than I have. I am too practical. Plus, I don�t necessarily believe that all authority should automatically be fucked. I favor a case-by-case assessment when determining whether to fuck authority. Anyway, it was a really fun night, and we danced among the art school kids with reckless abandon. For me, the reckless abandon part came when Erik�s coworker passed me a canteen of mystery juice, which turned out to be straight tequila. Who carries around canteens of tequila? Erik�s coworkers, that�s who. They�re a rowdy set. The other day when I called him at work and asked what he was doing, he replied, �Joe is showing me how he can walk on his knees while in the lotus position.� Why, of course.

Last night was more tomfoolery with the coworkers, this time at a couple�s hilltop paradiso in Echo Park. I love rooftop parties, especially when the view involves city lights and pretty nature. Their place really has that urban jungle balance. Did you know Echo Park is overrun with wild peacocks? It is, and they were perched atop every single telephone post within view from this particular rooftop.

Today, we�re lazing about, and it�s glorious. Erik is working on a website for a very interesting client. The client is an inventor. For weeks, Erik was blindly designing a shopping cart for the guy�s site, not knowing what invention the client even intended to sell. Then came the big reveal: it�s a peni$ measurer. The client believes his invention is the be-all, end-all of peni$ measurement and has spent quite a bit on getting a patent, sourcing manufacturers, and all the other expenses entrepreneurs face in such ventures. There was quite a bit of speculation as to what the device would look like, how it would work, etc. I imagined something fairly technical and complicated, but yesterday the first photos of the invention were e-mailed. It�s a tube with a sticker on it. That�s all it is. A tube. With a sticker on it.

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